Clarence Decatur Howe

Howe, Clarence Decatur (hou) [key], 1886–1960, Canadian civil engineer and cabinet minister, b. Waltham, Mass. He went to Canada in 1908 as professor of civil engineering at Dalhousie Univ. He founded (1916) an engineering firm that became internationally famous for its design and construction of grain elevators. He entered the Canadian House of Commons as a Liberal in 1935 and was at once invited by Mackenzie King to join the cabinet as minister of railways and canals and minister of marine. He merged the two agencies into the ministry of transport in 1936 and thereafter devoted himself to the development of air transportation, founding and organizing the Trans-Canada Air Lines. Soon after the outbreak of World War II, he was appointed (1940) minister of munitions and supply and in 1944 accepted concurrent appointment as minister of reconstruction. He became minister of trade and commerce in 1948. In 1957 he resigned the post when the Liberal party was defeated. From 1957 until his death he was chancellor of Dalhousie Univ.